How Many Miles to Babylon

Characters : -
Alexander (Alex, alec)
Alicia (Alex’s Mum)
Frederick (Alex’s Dad)
Jerry
Setting: - Early 20th Century Ireland, WW1 in France (Two settings) Summary – Part 1 * The story starts with the narrator Alexander Moore who is awaiting his death by a firing squad. * We get an indication early on in the text that the relationship with his parents is not good. * ‘My heart doesn’t bleed for her’ referring to his mother. This shows us that he did not have much love for his mother. * ‘As a child I was alone’. This indicates the incredible loneliness felt by Alex as a child. * ‘Their only meeting place was the child’. This refers to the unhappy marriage of Alicia and Frederick. * Alicia tries constantly to control both Alex and Frederick. * Frederick wants Alex to attend school and meet other people. However his mother puts a stop to this. * Alex meets Jerry and he is happy to have a friend at last. ‘I had a friend’. * Jerry and Alex continue to spend time together. They mind the ponies and swim together. They also experience their first taste of alcohol together ‘poteen’. * ‘It was discovered’ – referring to Jerry and Alex’s friendship being discovered by Alicia. * She refers to Jerry as a ‘stupid boy’. She forbids Alex to see Jerry anymore. She decides that she is bringing Alex to Europe to give him a cultural education. However, the real reason is that she wants to separate him from Jerry. She manipulates both her son and her husband and dismisses their opinions on any matters. * Both parents have no understanding of the basic needs of the child. Frederick agrees with Alicia about their friendship, ‘One must accept the limitations of the class into which you are born. They must be accepted’. Alex’s father is a coward but he does love his son. He is unable to express this love however. * He is as Alicia says ‘an effective man’.

* Alicia wants Alex to go to fight in World War 1. Frederick refers to her as an ‘absurd woman’. She wants Alex to go to war so that she can end the relationship that exists between Alex and his father, Frederick. She tells Alex that he is becoming more and more like his father each day. * Frederick tells her ‘Ponder deeply before you take away my son. No is what I say. No!’ The idea of Alex going to war deeply distresses his father. However, Frederick is powerless to stop her as he is a coward. * He tells Alex ‘You don’t think she’s packing you off to war for serious reasons, do you?’ We can understand that Alicia is telling Alex to go to war because she no longer wants to carry on with the facade of her marriage. She also does not want Alex and Frederick to continue their good relationship. * She tells Alex that Frederick is not his father ‘Suppose he were not your father?’ She knows how to manipulate Alex. Alex takes in the terrible content of what she has just said. He does not believe her at first but he is devastated when she tells him that it is indeed true. However we, as readers will never truly know if she was telling the truth. However, this revelation devastates Alex. * He meets Jerry and they go for a swim ‘like old times’. * Alex tells Jerry about his mother’s revelation. Jerry tells him ‘they all say what suits them, when it suits them’. Both of these characters haves suffered at the hands of women. Jerry is enlisting in the army for ‘cash’. It is this cash that will help his family survive at home. Alex is enlisting to escape his mother and his unhappy family. They both have a negative attitude towards women because they have never experienced the love of a woman. * Alex returns home after a night of drinking with Jerry. He is leaving the following morning. He comments on his parents that ‘They will grow old immaculately, their implacable hatred of each other hidden from the world’. * Alex informs his parents the following morning that he will be leaving. His father is shocked...

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...Alecs journey and discuss the valuable insight or lessons that you gained through the study of the theme of the journey?
The novel howmanymiles to Babylon by Jennifer Johnson highlights Alec Moore’s tragic journey. We see his journey true childhood to adulthood. Interestingly, the novel begins at the end of Alec’s journey as he waits execution “because I am no officer &amp; a gentlemen they have given me my notebook, ink, pen, paper” and comes full circle. Immediately we wonder how Alec someone so high up in the war is being executed, then as we read on we begin to realise how his journey through life has left him isolated and cold, returning to his prison cell at the close of the novel. Despite Alec’s privileged background or rather because of it, I now realise that the heart breaking ending was inevitable.
Having studied the protagonists journey I have gained many insights into how isolated children can be despite having a privileged background, isolation and control his mother had over him was a major obstacle, with the support of friendship obstacles can seem meaningless, psychology and Alec’s coping strategies, the impact the journey had on the protagonist and how people dealt with the trauma of war differently.
Alec led a very controlled and confined life due to his mothers control and rein over him. Throughout the novel we see...

...“Howmanymiles to Babylon?”
Alec Moore - Narrator
Frederick Moore - Father to Alec
Mrs. Moore - Mother to Alec
Jerry Crowe - Friend to Alec
Mrs. Crowe - Mother to Jerry
Major Glendinning - Commending Officer to Jerry and Alec in the army.
General Points -
§ Main Theme: Love vs. Hatred
§ Reflects different stages of Narrator Development
- There’s a continuous stream of consciousness, no chapters
§ Ireland
§ France
§ Love - of country
- passionless love of duty
- of power and wealth
- narcisstic love (love of self)
Theme and Issues:
Setting the Scene –
§ Alec Narrates his tale of a loveless child, leaving him emotionless and scarred
cruel mother, manipulative and hateful
§ He was always goaded by his “beautiful mother”
§ Mrs. Moore’s beauty contrasted to her vindictive personality. She’s swift and dismissive (passionless)
§ Home with no affefction
“The dining room in the daytime was unwelcoming”
Relationship with his mother –
§ Described through an experience when he seen his mother feeding the swans, thinking she was another woman for a split second, and felt love for her. This shows us that he doesn’t know his mother that well, mistaking her for another person but also that he only feels love for her when she is perceived as someone else. Compared to Christy’s love with his mother in “My left foot” – he has a continuous plutonic love for her.
§ Mrs. Moore’s human relationships...

...Howmanymiles to Babylon? Quotes
Howmanymiles to Babylon? – Ordinary Level Quotes List
Howmanymiles to Babylon?
Fourscore and ten, sir.
Will I get there by candlelight?
There and back again, sir
“I love no living person. P 1 – Now that Jerry is dead there is no one left that Alec cares about, not even his parents.
“He may be better off dead. My heart doesn’t bleed for her.” P 1 –This quote shows how bad the relationship between Alec and his parents is, he pities his father for the life he has to live with Alicia
“They are treating me with the respect apparently due to my class.” P1 –Importance of wealth/class
“As a child I was alone.” P 3 –Alicia’s selfish nature, isolating Alec for her own causes
“I was isolated from the surrounding children of my own age, by the traditional barriers of class and education.” P3 –Again the loneliness Alec felt as a child, hence his friendship with Jerry is so important
“I never minded being alone. I suppose now that I come to think of it I had never known anything else.” P6
“Even with them I was alone, and I was the only thing which made them less alone … Their only meeting place was the child.” P6 –The relationship between Alicia and Frederick is not a loving one, it is full of bitterness and resentment
“I have no intention...

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The same cannot be said for HowManyMiles to Babylon, which ends in a pessimistic and gloomy scene. Alec Moore is awaiting execution, as the novel comes full circle. He is given “a pen and paper” because he is an “officer and a gentleman”. He has nothing to do but wait. Alec refused to kill Jerry by firing squad, so in a sense, he asserted his own humanity in the face of war. However, this noble act is detrimental, as this act of compassion tragically costs him his life.Johnston’s outlook is in keeping with the sombre vision of the whole novel – dark, pessimistic and undeniably tragic.
The central characters and key relationships within a text are extremely important to our understanding of the general vision and viewpoint. They allow us to see how the actions of another person can have a positive or negative impact on the life of the protagonist. The relationship between Alec and his mother Alicia in HowManyMiles to Babylon is characterised by a lack of communication and affection. Alicia uses Alec as an extension of her own ego. He is not appreciated as an individual with individual needs and desires. She only cares that he conforms to her expectations. There is no real warmth to their relationship – which is cold and stifling. As well as restricting Alec’s relationship with Jerry Crowe, Alicia overpowers his relationship with...

...arguments and the shape they take that shows the extent of the conflict within the family, “Their words dropped malevolent and cool from well-bred mouths”.
On numerous occasions Alicia dismisses her husband.
The suggestion of Alec going to school by Frederick is met with Alicia telling her husband he makes “the most absurd remarks” and “I have no intention of remaining in this house with you alone”.
The conflict between his parents intensifies when it is suggested that Alec should go to war.
Frederick has been very vocal about the stupidity of this war and this new idea of Alicia’s makes him become more vocal “taken leave of your senses”.
Again Alicia becomes dismissive of her husband and tells him to go about his work.
Alicia had remarked how Alec was becoming like his father and in an attempt to destroy any closeness they had she suggests Frederick is not Alec’s father.
In order to avoid this new revelation Alec decides to go to war and essentially Alicia wins and in doing so destroys the potential relationship Alec could have had with his father....

...''HowManyMiles To Babylon?'' Jennifer Johnston
Characters:
Alec Moore - Narrator
Frederick Moore - Father to Alec
Mrs. Moore - Mother to Alec
Jerry Crowe - Friend to Alec
Mrs. Crowe - Mother to Jerry
Major Glendinning - Commending Officer to Jerry and Alec in the army
General Points:
- Reflects different stages of Narrator Development.
- Written in social realism.
- There’s a continuous stream of consciousness, no chapters.
- Starting and closing lines are both the same: ''Because I am an officer and a gentleman...''
 Setting of the Novel:
 The setting is varied, begins with Alec’s detention in France, and reverts to his childhood in Co. Wicklow, moves between Dublin, Belfast, England and France.
 With each change of setting, the reader is brought deeper into the impending doom with awaits Alec and Jerry.
 The move from Ireland to France also propels the protagonist from the domestic, political disharmony of his own country into the European fray so that the scale of the violence and cruelty of Alec’s early experiences is magnified beyond himself to thousands of other people.
 Set in Ireland and focuses on the political conflict around the time of the nationalist movement and the First World War.
 Also conflicts between the upper and lower class in Ireland (classification)
Plot Summary:
*Perfect for introduction to an essay*
This is the autobiographical narrative of a man...

...Olivia bagnall
“ The general vision and viewpoint of texts can be quite similar or very different “
In the light of the above statement compare the general vision and viewpoint in at least two texts of your comparative course ( 70 marks )
The general vision and viewpoints of the three texts I have studied show many similiarities and differences throughout. While I feel that the three texts HowManyMiles To Babylon , Casablanca and Oedipus Rex are primarily pessimistic texts there are optimistic views and postitive developments throughout that give an uplifting hope when it is needed . In this essay I shall discuss the opening scenes of each text, each main characters struggle against higher powers , the sacrafices made by each of the protagonists , the close of each text and the effect that all these topics have on the overall vision and viewpoint portrayed by the author / director .
The first impression of each text is key when evaluating the vision and view point. In the case of the three texts I have studied the opening scenes all create an ominous outlook centred on the theme of death. Oedipus Rex opens to the sight of Oedipus , the king , talking to the people of Thebes , their city has been striken by an awful plague . The chorus provide the reader with grotesque , disturbing imagery in their first speech “ The dead spreading death “ and create an general opening atmosphere of...

...experience of the break-up of her parent's marriage when she was a child and her own divorce from her first husband. As Alex faces his execution, he makes it clear that it is the combination of the expectations placed on him by his social class and his mother's rejection of him that have led to his impending death.
Alex's life has been marked by indecision and cowardice and, ironically, it is the one brave and decisive act of his life that both saves him and marks his end. Alex runs away from the social and personal isolation of life at home only to find it follows him to the trenches of Flanders. His friendship with Jerry isolates both of them and its warmth seems to be at odds with the coldness of war.
HowManyMiles to Babylon is not merely another of the many post-war comments on the futility of war, because Johnston adds a new, specifically Irish, dimension to the picture. Through the characters of Alex and Jerry, Johnston seems to be suggesting that it is their Irishness that sets them apart and allows them to maintain their humanity in the face of the pervasive dehumanisation of war. In asserting his own humanity above his role as an "officer and a gentleman", Alex raises himself above the horror of war and redeems himself. The tragedy remains, however, that his redemption costs him his life.
Genre
This novel is written in the genre of social realism, which means that it does not...